Why Star Trek: Enterprise Failed And How It Nearly Worked | Giant Freakin RobotGiant Freakin Robot Why Star Trek: Enterprise Failed And How It Nearly Worked DATE: Apr 25, 2012 | BY: Josh Tyler | Category: Sci-Fi When Enterprise debuted on UPN in 2001 it was with a self-assured sense of success. Sure Star Trek was in a bit of a decline after all the misfires of Voyager, but Enterprise promised to remedy all of that by taking Gene Roddenberry’s vision in a fresh direction, rewinding the clock back to where the Federation began to rediscover the spirit of adventure and exploration that used to be the hallmarks of an aging franchise now drowning in overwrought techno-babble. They were so certain this would work that, at least not until it became clear in the third season that it wouldn’t, Enterprise didn’t even bother to put the words “Star Trek” in its title. Their audience would find it, support it, and love it no matter what they called it. They weren’t wrong. Had Enterprise turned out to be any of the things it was supposed to be, all of those things would have come true.

We know that because five years after its cancellation director JJ Abrams pulled off all the things Enterprise originally promised, and more, in his 2009 movie. The 2009 Star Trek was, basically, everything Enterprise was meant to become but didn’t. What happened? Where did they go wrong? I’ve spent the last few months re-watching every episode of the show and, seven years after its cancellation, I have answers. This is why Star Trek: Enterprise went wrong and how it so nearly didn’t. Enterprise NX-01 A Fresh Start There’s no denying in the wake of the 2009 movie’s success that they had the right idea. Enterprise was supposed to take us back to the beginning of the Federation, before the time of Captain Kirk to the first starship to bear that famous name, in a tumultuous galaxy humans were only beginning to understand. More than that, Enterprise was supposed to be different in style and tone. They wanted a stripped down approach, one that emphasized the strength of human determination instead of the excessive, over-reliance on technology previous Trek series’ had become lost in. Unfortunately, instead of really embracing that fresh premise Enterprise quickly became a television series at war with itself.

The show’s pilot, “Broken Bow” immediately went to the by then, played out time travel well and set in motion a series of events that would waste what should have been an interesting premise on a half-hearted temporal plot that went nowhere. Worse by focusing on time travel as the show’s primary plot device, they ignored the time period they’d worked so hard to set it in, telling stories that could have been told in any place at any time. Rather than exploring the possibilities of storytelling in the earliest, wild west days of human space exploration Enterprise all too often focused on the same meaningless technobabble that hamstrung Voyager, only it felt even more out of place here in a show that seemed so clearly designed not to be that kind of series at all. Nothing embodied the show’s dual nature better than its much maligned theme song. Like the series itself, the Enterprise opening credits were meant to signify something fresh, to embody the spirit of excitement and adventure they hoped to recapture. Casting off the traditional, ship-flyby open used by all previous Star Trek incarnations, Enterprise created a visual history lesson which rocketed through the history of human exploration.

Then it ruined that otherwise exciting visual feast by setting it to an awkward song about faith sung by a Rod Stewart knockoff, presumably because nothing says exploration and adventure like elevator rock. Later when they realized everyone hated it, they tried to fix it by speeding up the tempo. Like setting a Michael Bolton song to a Bossanova beat cranked out of a Casio, this made something bad even worse. Yet even in amongst the mess the show’s producers made of it, the remnants of a few good ideas found a way to shine through… while Enterprise’s writers did everything they could to ignore them. Some of those overlooked remnants were minor, the crew’s fear of using the transporter for instance, was a nice little subplot which never really got properly explored. Some of them were major. Jonathan Archer and Porthos Captain Archer None of those missed opportunities were a bigger problem than the show’s captain who started out as something interesting and, thanks to the series’ insistence on ignoring anything that might be worth watching, turned into a bore. Archer was played by Scott Bakula, an actor best known for his “aw shucks” persona, and the character he played reflected that . The thing about Captain Archer is that he’s not very good at his job.

He’s the first Star Trek captain who seems to have absolutely no idea what he’s doing. It makes sense, he’s the first to be out there doing it. Starfleet had no way to know what kind of man they’d need sitting in their first Warp 5 ship’s captain’s chair. In Jonathan Archer, they picked wrong. The Archer Enterprise introduced us to initially was careless and sloppy. He fraternizes with the crew and treats his mission like he’s on some sort of galactic pleasure cruise. He’s not a bad guy or even a bad officer, he’s just not very well suited to being a starship commander. When things start to go wrong, he pouts. When things don’t go as planned, he complains that aliens are mean. As the missions get tougher he gets increasingly unhappy, miserable, even morose. He starts to scowl, yells at his crew, begins holding grudges, shooting first and asking questions later. Enterprise responds by glossing over his mistakes and telling us how great he is. As the show’s writers became increasingly out of touch with the character, Archer turned into nothing more than a placeholder for an already determined future success.

His attitude didn’t matter, his mistakes didn’t really amount to anything, and his decisions were rendered irrelevant as Enterprise charted a course which forced him to go right when he should have gone left. They could have made an entire series out of watching Archer struggle with his failures but instead they kept pushing the character into Captain Kirk’s cookie-cutter mold. Archer isn’t Captain Kirk. He likes water polo. He spends his off-duty hours hugging a Beagle. He’s more comfortable talking about warp theory than negotiating with hostile aliens or making sweet love to green women. Enterprise ignored this and kept crafting Archer as something he never was and that Scott Bakula was never capable of playing. T'Pol shows Trip her best assets. Vulcan Fury It wasn’t a bad idea to have a Vulcan on Enterprise. After all this is a Star Trek set in the very earliest days of the humanity’s journey out into the stars. Vulcans were the first aliens encountered by humanity and would, logically, be one of the few races they’d be well acquainted with during this period. It was, however, a bad idea to make that Vulcan Archer’s first officer.

Enterprise is supposed to be, after all, a show about humanity’s first leap out into the stars. Instead it’s a show about humans reaching out into the stars whenever Archer’s on the bridge. When he’s not, it turns into a show about how a Vulcan named T’Pol told humans what to do on their first attempt to reach out and connect with other species. That’s particularly ridiculous in light of Archer’s own resentment towards Vulcans. He sets out on his journey determined to have humanity start doing things on its own. And for his first act as Captain of Earth’s first warp 5 ship, he makes a Vulcan his first officer. Nothing about this makes any sense. It makes even less sense when you consider what Enterprise made out of the Vulcans. Missing were the logical, peace-loving aliens we’ve grown to know and love as part of the Trek universe. In their place were a bunch of angry, pointy-eared, close-minded racists with an addiction to spray-tan and a penchant for murder and threats.

In the show’s final season there was a last-minute, half-hearted attempt to reconcile all of this and turn the Vulcans back into creatures best known for their inability to lie… but by then it was too little, too late. Maybe they could have sold the idea of Vulcan fury better if they’d cast an actual actress to play T’Pol, the aforementioned Enterprise first officer. Instead they cast glorified nookie girl Jolene Blalock. She’s useful whenever you want to photograph a Vulcan female in her underwear (something the show, wisely, did a lot of) but Blalock’s not much good for anything else. I’d like to think that no one ever actually got around to telling her that Vulcans don’t have emotions, but the truth is probably that she just can’t act. At all. Jeffrey Combs as Shran Character Matters Luckily Blalock’s lack of talent wasn’t something shared by all of the Enterprise crew. Charles “Trip” Tucker III (played by Connor Trinneer) the catfish lovin’ Southern engineer is a delight, like Han Solo with a monkey wrench.

Trip’s the kind of guy who gets away with a wink and a nod and woos women with his southern drawl. His excitement over the possibilities of their mission are infectious, his sense of humor a welcome relief from his Captain’s increasingly dour demeanor. Phlox, the ship’s Denobulan doctor is equally successful. Performed with an effervescent verve for life by the great John Billingsly, he’s one of the most truly alien crew members ever to show up on a Trek series. His freakishly wide smile is the sort of subtle special effect that deserves Emmys. Dozens of episodes could have been written about his complex marital arrangements (Denobulans have three wives, who also have three husbands) alone, but of course, they weren’t. Enterprise managed to score great guest stars too. Some of them it wasted. A guest appearance by Scott Bakula’s Quantum Leap companion Dean Stockwell was blown on a generic character unworthy of his talents. Others the show took advantage of, but maybe not enough.

Jeffrey Combs’ brilliant performance as the Andorian Commander Shran demanded he be used as a recurring character, but probably should have also prompted them to go a step further and find a way to make him part of the regular cast. Still others they shoehorned into the show over and over again, against all common sense. Temporal Agent Crewman Daniels was the ultimate deus ex machina, a useless character shoved down our throats repeatedly, whenever the series’ needed an excuse to engage in yet another useless, gimmicky, time travel plot. As it was with almost everything that mattered Enterprise never truly took advantage of its better characters. Trip remained generally relegated to the engine room and Phlox was kept locked away in his sickbay chasing the occasional escaped Tyberian bat. Though none of the show’s better characters, like its phobic genius communications officer Hoshi, or the single-minded military man Malcolm, ever really got their due… their presence frequently resulted in genuine moments which succeeded in spite of the lukewarm episodes being written around them. Trip and Malcolm’s drunken shuttle pod discussion about the perfection of T’Pol’s “bum” remains one of the series’ best.

Trip’s heart-wrenching, weepy, hand-holding finale to a limp episode which resulted in the death of his daughter was like an emotional punch in the gut that lingered long after the credits were over. A few perfect scenes with the great characters it wasted was the best Enterprise gave us. The Enterprise crew at the birth of the Federation. The Show That Almost Was With the clock running down and cancellation imminent, in the latter half of its fourth season Enterprise tried to become the show it should have been all along. A sudden interest in exploring the universe it was supposed to be discovering resulted in a flurry of episodes involving the alien races Archer and his crew were meant to befriend in order to pave the way to the Federation we knew from Kirk’s Trek-era. The stories they should have been telling for the past four seasons were condensed into a few short episodes and shoved out the door at warp speed, a last ditch effort to win departed fans back. It was too late. Nothing they did would matter. After four seasons of low ratings Enterprise, by then retitled Star Trek: Enterprise, was cancelled in 2005. Enterprise was supposed to be a grand television series about exploration, about the spirit of adventure, about the triumph of the human spirit.

Instead it kept getting bogged down in gimmicks, gimmicks which it never needed and gimmicks which its audience had long since grown weary of. The show’s producers, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, were locked into a formula which told them that they had to have a reason to fire phasers every episode or their audience would stop being interested. Enterprise’s producers never had any faith in Star Trek fans and so it wasn’t long before Star Trek fans lost faith in them. In the process Hollywood lost faith in the entire franchise, sending longtime steward Rick Berman to the unemployment line and Star Trek into the high-octane, style over substance hands of JJ Abrams. Thanks to Enterprise, Rodenberry’s vision will never be the same again. 8 Starship Enterprise Facts Every Trekker Should Know - Neatorama Neatorama • 4 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), the starship in the original Star Trek TV series To boldly go where no man has gone before, you'd need a really good starship - and to launch Star Trek, the pop culture phenomenon that entertained and inspired millions, you'd need a pretty darned good one! And that is exactly what the United Space Starship Enterprise delivered.

Here are 8 Starship Enterprise facts every Trekker should know: 1. Meet the REAL Enterprise (Several of Them, Actually) (L) The tenth HMS Enterprise, an Arctic survey sloop (1848), painting by WH Browne from the National Maritime Museum online collection ; (R) USS Enterprise at Valcour Island, Lake Champlain, New York (1776) from Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships Before Star Trek, there have been many actual ships named Enterprise. The very first one of note was a French frigate L'Enterprise, which was captured by the British Royal Navy in 1705 and renamed as HMS Enterprise. It served as a British gun ship until it was wrecked just two years later. After this ship, there were 14 other HMS also named Enterprise (sometimes spelled Enterprize). The United States have 8 battleships named Enterprise, including the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier in the world. The very first one (before the US became a country, so technically it was a ship of the Continental Navy) was an armed sloop on Lake Champlain in 1775 named the United States Ship (USS) Enterprise.

During the American Civil War, aeronaut and scientist Thaddeus S.C. Lowe built a balloon named Enterprise , to be used by the Union Army to perform aerial recon on Confederate troops. (L) Enterprise, a gas inflated aerostat (1858); (M) Space Shuttle Enterprise; (R) Artist rendering of VSS Enterprise And who can forget the Space Shuttle Enterprise? It was the very first Space Shuttle orbiter, built for NASA in 1976. The Shuttle was supposed to be named Constitution, but a write-in campaign successfully persuaded NASA to name it after the Star Trek starship. (Interestingly, the fictional Starship Enterprise was a Constitution-class vessel - coincidence? Hm....) The last actual Enterprise hasn't been built yet but it already has a name: Virgin Space Ship (VSS) Enterprise and yes, it's an homage to Star Trek. It's a suborbital spaceplane being built by Sir Richard Branson of Virgin for the purposes of space tourism.

Ironically, when Sir Richard offered the first flight to William Shatner, the actor declined and revealed that he's actually afraid of space travel, "I'm interested in man's march into the unknown but to vomit in space is not my idea of a good time. Neither is a fiery crash with the vomit hovering over me." Shatner added that he's not entirely against the idea - he just needed some reassurance. "I do want to go up but I need guarantees I'll definitely come back." ( Source ) 2. No Rockets, Jets or Firestreams Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who pitched the TV show as "Wagon Train to the Stars," didn't tell art director Matt Jefferies what Starship Enterprise should look like, instead he told the bewildered art director what he did not want to see. Starship Concept Art has reprint of a nifty article in Star Trek: The Magazine by Jefferies about the design process: "In my approach to Star Trek I wanted to be as practical as possible," Jefferies says. "I could tell Gene was serious enough, but I really didn't know where to start.

I knew the Enterprise was going to be on the cutting edge of the future, but essentially he gave me the job of finding a shape, and I didn't know what the shape looked like." Although Roddenberry knew a lot about his ship, he had never visualized it, and consequently made the situation more complicated since he couldn't give Jefferies a detailed sense of direction. According to Jefferies, Roddenberry was absolutely clear to avoid any resemblance to a 1960's rocket ship. "Gene described the 100-150 man crew, outer space, fantastic, unheard-of speed, and that we didn't have to worry about gravity. He had emphasized that there were to be no fins, no wings, no smoke trails, no flames, no rocket. After hundreds of drawings, Jefferies came up with this: In his honor, the crawl spaces on all of the Starfleet starships on Star Trek are called Jefferies tubes. 3. The Original Name of USS Enterprise That's right - the iconic starship wasn't always named USS Enterprise ... in the original draft, Roddenberry named it USS Yorktown after a World War II aircraft carrier.

The starship was commanded by Captain Robert April, then Christopher Pike, before Roddenberry settled on James Tiberius Kirk. By the way, William Shatner was the third choice for Kirk. The role was offered to Lloyd Bridges and Jack Lord, both of whom declined it. 4. The Origin of NCC-1701 How did the famous USS Enterprise get its registration number NCC-1701 is the stuff of legend. There are conflicting stories, including one where 1701 is a tribute to Roddenberry's childhood neighbor's house number or that Jefferies got it from the registration number of his airplane. Here's Matt Jefferies' explanation when he was asked during a BBC Interview : NC, by international agreement, stood for all United States commercial vehicles. Russia had wound up with four Cs, CC CC. It’d been pretty much a common opinion that any major effort in space would be two expensive for any one country, so I mixed the US and the Russian and came up with NCC. The one seven zero part - I needed a number that would be instantly identifiable, and three, six, eight and nine are too easily confused.

I don’t think anyone’ll confuse a one and a seven, or the zero. So the one seven stood for the seventeenth basic ship design in the Federation, and the zero one would have been serial number one, the first bird. 5. Land the Ship? Too Expensive, Let's Teleport Everybody Instead! Originally, Roddenberry envisioned the USS Enterprise to land on various planets, but it turned out to be too expensive as it would require them to build expensive sets. The next idea was to use shuttles - but when filming began, the full-sized shooting model wasn't ready. So, they came up with the idea of "beaming down" the crew via a teleportation device and thus the transporter was born! ( Source ) In 1994, TIME Magazine interviewed Star Trek technical expert Michael Okuda about the intricacies of the transporter: "It should be possible if we decompile the pattern buffer." Transporters can send people instantly from one location to another by converting their molecules into energy, then reassembling them. Every living being has a distinct pattern of molecules; the pattern buffer fixes the configuration by adjusting for the Doppler effect -- the apparent change in the frequency of the energy waves caused by motion.

"I'll verify the Heisenberg compensators." The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you cannot know a subatomic particle's exact position and its exact direction and velocity at the same time. To transport people you have to know all those things, so the Heisenberg compensator was devised to overcome that problem. It's an attempt by the Trek writers to signal that they are at least aware of the issue. And how does the Heisenberg compensator work? "It works very well, thank you," says Okuda. 6. The Next Gen Enterprise: Hilton in Space Jefferies designed the bridge in the original USS Enterprise in the style of a Navy battleship, with specialized workstations for its crew. When set designer Richard James updated the bridge for Star Trek: The Next Generation (restriction: no purple !), Jefferies was asked about the new look. To which he replied: Gene asked me how I liked the show, and I said that he had taken the bridge of my ship and turned it into the lobby of the Hilton. And I have just never watched any of them since. I’m lost. Ironically, Star Trek and Hilton actually did come together to create a theme attraction.

Star Trek: The Experience opened in 1998 at the Las Vegas Hilton. It closed in 2008 due to low attendance (though it is due to re-open in a different location in 2010). 7. The Original Star Trek Enterprise Prop Photo: Carolyn Russo / Smithsonian If you visit the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian, definitely check out the actual model of the Starship Enterprise used in the filming of the original Star Trek TV show. The hull and one nacelle of the original Star Trek Starship Enterprise model as it was received by the National Air and Space Museum from Paramount Studios on March 1, 1974. Image WEB11192-2009. Photo: Smithsonian (with permission) The model of the Enterprise was sent to the museum in crates, donated by Paramount Studios five years after the series ended. Enterprise during its first Smithsonian restoration. SI Neg #74-3977. Photo: Smithsonian (with permission) The Smithsonian performed extensive restoration to put the starship model back together, and for the first time ever, the photos of the restoration process are available to the public at the museum's blog. The Museum Registrar Gregory K.H.

Bryant has more on this behind the scenes look at the icon science fiction model: Link - Thanks Llori! 8. The Hot-Rod Starship Enterprise For his movie Star Trek, director J.J. Abrams decided that the USS Enterprise could use a face-lift and worked with artists at Industrial Light & Magic to update the starship - like Roddenberry, he gave a simple directive: "He wanted a hot-rod type of vehicle, but they also wanted to preserve the Enterprise kind of look," model maker John Goodson said in a presentation at ILM's San Francisco headquarters earlier this month. "J.J. Abrams kept saying, 'Make it a bigger movie. Make it a bigger shot,'" creative director David Nakabayashi added.

"I think that's one thing you see in this film, at least: The stuff I've seen is just everything is big." SCI FI Wire has the interview with model maker John Goodson and visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett about the new Enterprise: The official website for JJ Abram's Star Trek movie has a nifty 360° panorama of the bridge of the new starship: Star Trek: The 5-Year Mission That Lasted 50 Star Trek: The 5-Year Mission That Lasted 50 By Newsweek Special Edition On 1/2/16 at 9:09 AM William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk speaks into his communicator with James Doohan as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott and Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov in the background during the episode “Spock’s Brain.” CBS/Landov Culture Star Trek science fiction TV The Star Trek Enterprise’s first mission was slated to last five years. Fifty years later, it's living long—and prospering. In a new special edition, Newsweek celebrates 50 years of Gene Roddenberry’s legendary sci-fi creation that spawned a movement. This article is excepted from the full issue, Star Trek—50 Years.

Space: the final frontier. Into this silent and endless void glided the USS Enterprise, the flagship of the United Federation of Planets on a five-year mission of exploration. That mission began on September 8, 1966, when Star Trek officially debuted on TV screens across America. But, in the world of the 23rd century, it was stardate 1513.1, and the adventures of James T. Kirk and crew were about to get underway. The Enterprise’s first mission with Kirk as captain, “The Man Trap,” set the tone for what would follow during the course of Star Trek’s original run. Arriving at a distant planet, Kirk and crew encounter a mysterious creature that survives by extracting the salt from the bodies of its human victims. The catch? The creature’s human form is that of the former flame of Leonard “Bones” McCoy, the ship’s doctor. The emotional conflict created when McCoy faces the monster wearing his lover’s face told viewers this was no ordinary space romp. There was pathos, drama and tragedy as well. Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week As the series continued, its staff of talented writers, including Richard Matheson, D.C.

Fontana, Gene Coon and Harlan Ellison, created stories that dealt with Vietnam (“A Private Little War”), racism (“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”) and religion (“Bread and Circuses”). It broke new ground, starting right in the pilot episode, “The Cage,” when captain Christopher Pike asks his female first officer to take command of the ship in his absence. Leonard Nimoy as the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock used his role to explore and shed light on the conflict of being an outsider, making him a hero to many people struggling with their own identities during the turbulent ’60s and beyond. The series wasn’t always perfect. The Enterprise was overtaken by a mob of groovy space hippies in “The Way to Eden,” and “Spock’s Brain” saw the titular Vulcan cope with having his cerebrum swiped. There were also the budgetary concerns plaguing the series for all 79 episodes of its run. Certain episodes were dictated by whatever costumes could be dredged up on the Paramount lot, meaning the Enterprise took detours to planets inspired by everything from the Old West to Nazi Germany.

The fact that most of these metaphorically lemon-like diversions didn’t go sour is a testament to the lemonade-making abilities of Roddenberry and his staff. Related Stories ‘Cumberbitches,’ Rejoice! Plus, those who boldly went on the original mission of the USS Enterprise knew that the money wasn’t what mattered. At the heart of the series was the bond formed between its crew, particularly Kirk, the passionate man of action, Spock, the logical voice of reason, and Bones, the persistent malcontent. Their unlikely and enduring friendship defined the series, and every incarnation since has tried (with varying success) to replicate it. Witness the heartbreaking ending of “City on the Edge of Forever” when Kirk, having traveled back in time, must let Edith Keeler—the 20th-century woman with whom he’s fallen in love—die in order to preserve the future. As Bones attempts to intercede, Kirk stops him, allowing Edith to step in front of an oncoming car. An incredulous McCoy, unaware of the implications, asks a grief-stricken Kirk, “Do you know what you’ve done?” Somberly, Spock intones, “He knows, Doctor.

He knows.” More than a journey to the edge of the galaxy, the original series of Star Trek was a journey inward, an examination of what makes us human—even those of us who sometimes feel half Vulcan. This article is excerpted from a Newsweek Special Edition, Star Trek—50 Years, by Issue Editor Tim Baker. Clockwise from bottom left Photos 12/Alamy (2); AF Archive/Alamy (4). Digital Imaging by Vanessa Ynda USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) | Memory Alpha | Fandom powered by Wikia Captain Christopher Pike commanded the Enterprise from the early 2250s into the 2260s . His missions included voyages to the Rigel , Vega , and Talos systems . Pike's half - Vulcan science officer , Spock , who served under him for over eleven years, ultimately became the starship's longest-serving officer . ( TOS : " The Menagerie, Part I ") Multiple production sources, including an unseen display screen intended for use in " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II ", the Star Trek Encyclopedia , and The Making of Star Trek , give the Enterprise launch date as 2245 .

Since this date dovetails nicely with Gene Roddenberry 's apparent beliefs as well as the conjectural dates of Robert April's captaincy and Larry Marvick's design timeline, fans generally accept it, despite the absence of concrete canonical evidence for it. ( citation needed • edit ) According to The Making of Star Trek , the Enterprise was built on Earth but assembled in space. According to a computer display that was created by production staff of Star Trek: Enterprise but never used on screen, Jonathan Archer was present at the launch and died the next day. This information remains non-canon, because it was never photographed on film. In TAS : " The Counter-Clock Incident ", it is stated that Sarah April's service on the Enterprise was the first time a medical officer served on a starship equipped with warp drive . However, it is established in Star Trek: Enterprise that warp-capable starships had medical personnel prior to the time of her service. Kirk's five-year mission Edit In orbit, 2267 In 2265 , the Enterprise was assigned to a five-year mission of deep-space exploration, and command passed to James T. Kirk . The ship's primary goal during this mission was to seek out and contact alien life.

Captain Kirk's standing orders also included the investigation of all quasars and quasar-like phenomena. Beyond its primary mission, the Enterprise defended Federation territories from aggression, aided member worlds in crisis, and provided scientific expeditions and colonies in her patrol area with annual examinations and support. ( TOS : " Balance of Terror ", " The Man Trap ", " The Cloud Minders ", " Journey to Babel ", " The Galileo Seven ", " The Deadly Years ") Despite 2270 being given as the year Kirk's first five-year mission in command of the Enterprise came to an end (in the Star Trek: Voyager episode " Q2 "), many production resources – including the booklet for the TOS Season 1 DVD set – continue to use the Star Trek Chronology 's date of 2264 as the starting point of the mission. It is possible, however, that the mission ran from 2264 through 2269 and that the Enterprise did not return to Earth until 2270. According to a line from the script of Star Trek but removed from the final draft, the crew of the Enterprise came together in a time of "ultimate crisis", much like their alternate reality counterparts did.

[1] According to a line of dialogue from the final draft script of " Mudd's Women ", the Enterprise was located two years, five months, twenty-two days, and seven hours from a starbase at impulse speed in that episode. Discoveries From 2265 to 2270 , the Enterprise visited over seventy different worlds and encountered representatives of over sixty different species . More than twenty of those were first contacts with beings previously unknown to the Federation , including stellar neighbors like the First Federation and Gorn , voyagers from the Kelvan Empire in distant Andromeda , and powerful non-corporeal entities like the Thasians , Trelane , and the Organians . Two discovered species were the first known examples of silicon -based lifeforms: the Horta and the Excalbians . ( TOS : " The Corbomite Maneuver ", " Arena ", " By Any Other Name ", " The Devil in the Dark ", " The Savage Curtain ") In the barrier void in 2265 The Enterprise was the first Federation vessel to survive an encounter with the galactic barrier . The ship's warp drive and other systems, however, were critically damaged and casualties totaled twelve crewmembers and officers .

By stardate 4657.5, the Enterprise was traveling through space in a region hundreds of light years further than any Earth starship had explored. ( TOS : " Where No Man Has Gone Before ", " Return to Tomorrow ") The reality of time travel, externally influenced, had been known for over a century , but following two accidental temporal displacements , the Enterprise became the Federation's first deliberately-controlled timeship . Observing the death-throes of Psi 2000 , the crew suffered from polywater intoxication and the Enterprise nearly lost orbit after an engine shutdown. A previously untested " cold start ", via controlled matter-antimatter implosion , saved the ship, but the high-speed escape from the planet's gravity well caused the ship to travel three days into the past. ( TOS : " The Naked Time ") Orbiting 1960s Earth In 2267 , while escaping the gravitational pull of a black star , the Enterprise was hurled through space and time to Earth of 1969 . The crew developed and executed a method to return to their own time, by warping around the sun 's gravity well in a slingshot maneuver .

A year later, the Enterprise was ordered to repeat the recently proven slingshot effect, and returned to Earth's past on a mission of historical observation. ( TOS : " Tomorrow is Yesterday ", " Assignment: Earth ") Originally, "The Naked Time" and "Tomorrow is Yesterday" were planned to be back-to-back stories, with the events in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" happening as a result of the "cold start" of the warp drive in "The Naked Time". A change in production plans resulted in the two stories being de-linked and slightly reworked to stand alone. The space amoeba in 2268 Some missions of discovery confronted Enterprise with entities and mechanisms that threatened great swaths of Federation and neighboring space. An ancient " planet killer ", fueled by the consumption of planets it destroyed with its antiproton weapon , approached Federation population centers in 2267. It required the combined efforts of the Enterprise and her sister ship, USS Constellation , to destroy it. ( TOS : " The Doomsday Machine ") One year later, in 2268 , a single-cell organism of colossal scale emitted negative energy , toxic to humanoid life, killing the entire Vulcan crew of the USS Intrepid .

The Enterprise penetrated the cell interior and destroyed the organism before its imminent cell division threatened to overwhelm the rest of the galaxy. ( TOS : " The Immunity Syndrome ") Battles The Enterprise fires a proximity blast The nature of its mission of exploration meant the Enterprise was frequently the only Federation military asset in a little-known, otherwise undefended frontier. When called into harm's way, the ship regularly did so with little chance of immediate support against previously unknown enemies and threats. Happily, the Enterprise's earliest engagement of its five-year mission, against a deceptively powerful starship called the Fesarius , ended with an amicable first contact with the First Federation in 2266 . Following the destruction of a colony on Cestus III , a surprise attack – from a previously unknown species – led the Enterprise to battle and pursue an evenly matched Gorn starship in 2267. ( TOS : " The Corbomite Maneuver ", " Arena ") The Enterprise played fox to the hounds of its four sister starships in a war game exercise on stardate 4729.4.

Equipped with the new M-5 multitronic unit computer and stripped of most of its crew, the Enterprise became a killing machine – crippling the USS Excalibur and killing its entire crew – before Kirk could re-assert control. ( TOS : " The Ultimate Computer ") Klingon engagements Edit The Battle of Organia in 2267 Warships of the Imperial Klingon Fleet were frequent opponents of the Enterprise. Commander Kor held the Enterprise and Kirk in high professional regard, and relished the prospect of battle. Lower ranks chose to mock the starship; on one such occasion, Korax compared the vessel to a " garbage scow " before he corrected himself, adding, "It should be hauled away as garbage." ( TOS : " Errand of Mercy ", " The Trouble with Tribbles ") While Starfleet rallied its forces at the outbreak of a Federation-Klingon War in 2267, the Enterprise was sent forward to secure a border region anchored by the planet Organia . The vessel destroyed a Klingon attack ship and prepared to engage an approaching Klingon fleet, before the Organian Peace Treaty precluded a full-scale war .

( TOS : " Errand of Mercy ") The Enterprise sporadically engaged Klingons throughout its voyage. A warship failed in an attempt to blockade the Enterprise from Capella IV in 2267. Sabotaged during a diplomatic mission to the Tellun system in 2268, the ship successfully fought off the assault of a harassing D7 . The same year, the Enterprise was forced to destroy a battle cruiser that Kang had commanded but had recently abandoned, and the rescued Klingons (influenced by the Beta XII-A entity ) subsequently made an unsuccessful attempt to wrest control of the Enterprise from Kirk. ( TOS : " Friday's Child ", " Elaan of Troyius ", " Day of the Dove ") Romulan engagements The Romulan Star Empire reemerged from a century of isolation to antagonize the Federation with the Neutral Zone Incursion of 2266. The Enterprise responded and was victorious against a new Romulan Bird-of-Prey equipped with a cloaking device and plasma torpedo system. ( TOS : " Balance of Terror ") In later encounters, the Romulan fleet used strength of numbers in their efforts to overwhelm the Enterprise.

When Commodore George Stocker took temporary command and violated the Neutral Zone in 2267, up to ten Bird-of-Prey swarmed and pummeled the starship until Kirk's " corbomite " bluff inspired their withdrawal. ( TOS : " The Deadly Years ") In 2268, the Enterprise again violated the Neutral Zone – for the purpose of espionage – and was quickly surrounded by three Romulan D7 class battle cruisers. She escaped by becoming the first Federation vessel to install and successfully utilize a (stolen) Romulan cloaking device. ( TOS : " The Enterprise Incident ") Near Tau Ceti in the following year, Kirk employed the Cochrane deceleration maneuver , allowing the Enterprise to defeat Romulan forces. ( TOS : " Whom Gods Destroy ") In the final year of Kirk's original mission, the ship was ambushed by a trio of Romulan battle cruisers while on a routine survey. The Enterprise managed to escape through an energy field that adversely affected the ship's main computer. The malfunctioning systems were corrected by another pass through the field, this time with the Romulan ships in pursuit.

The attackers then became incapacitated by the same computer malfunctions, and the Enterprise was able to escape. ( TAS : " The Practical Joker ") Casualties Edit USS Enterprise in 2254 The Enterprise's first documented refit occurred sometime between 2254 and 2265. Minor changes were made to the ship's exterior (most notably the impulse engines, warp nacelles , running lights, and hull markings). More substantial changes were made to the interior color scheme and layout of the ship. A second, more extensive refit occurred at some point after the craft's encounter with the "galactic barrier" in 2265. This refit involved replacing the bridge module, a newer, smaller deflector dish, and refinements to the warp nacelles. The ship's interior was also upgraded. The new bridge module included consoles with triangular and circular resin buttons as well as white-colored rocker flip switches. There was another small refit sometime in early 2266, too. The white-colored rocker flip switches seen on bridge consoles and on various places on the ship were replaced with multi-colored rocker flip switches.

In the late 2260s , a new bridge module added a second turbolift, and the design moved toward a completely smooth circular configuration, both standard features on future starships. At the same time, the translucent overhead dome was obscured, not to return until the Galaxy-class bridge . ( TAS : " Beyond the Farthest Star ") At the end of its five-year mission, the Enterprise returned to Earth in 2270 . Following its success, the ship had become a recognized symbol of Starfleet and the Federation. Starfleet's array of unique assignment patches were abandoned for the universal adoption of the Enterprise delta symbol, previously used on the assignment patch for the USS Kelvin . ( Star Trek ) The stalwart vessel itself was by then twenty-five years old and returning from a deployment that included an unprecedented number of warp-speed records, hull -pounding battles, and frame-stressing maneuvers. The refitted Enterprise in spacedock, 2270s System upgrades with new technologies after long deployments were far from unusual in the ship's history. However, the Enterprise's overhaul of the early 2270s became a nearly keel-up redesign and reconstruction project.

The very heart of the ship was replaced with a radically different vertical warp core assembly, linked to new, and heavier, warp engine nacelles atop swept-back pylons and integrated with the impulse engines. The new drive system allowed for an expanded cargo hold in the secondary hull , linked to the shuttlebay . Weapons system upgrades included nine dual- phaser banks with power channeled directly from the warp engines. A double photon torpedo /probe launcher was installed atop the secondary hull. Multiple egress points now included a port -side spacedock hatch, dual ventral space walk bays, four dorsal service hatches, and a standardized docking ring port aft of the bridge on the primary hull , four more docking ring ports, paired on the port and starboard sides of the launcher and secondary hulls respectively, and service hatch airlocks on the port and starboard sides of the hangar bay's main clam-shell doors. A new bridge module reflected the modern computer systems, operating interfaces, and ergonomics that ran throughout the ship.

Following Kirk's promotion to rear admiral and posting as Chief of Starfleet Operations , his successor, Captain Willard Decker (whom Kirk himself picked to succeed him), oversaw the refit, assisted by chief engineer Commander Montgomery Scott . After two-and-a-half years in spacedock for refit, the Enterprise was pressed into service, weeks ahead of schedule, in response to the V'ger crisis, once again under Kirk's command. Making contact with V'ger Decker was temporarily demoted to commander and posted as executive officer because of his familiarity with the new design. Incomplete systems had to be serviced during the vessel's shakedown cruise en route to V'ger, including the first test of the new warp engines. Shortly after launch, a matter/ antimatter intermix malfunction ruptured the warp field and led to the Enterprise entering into an unstable wormhole . Commander Decker belayed an order from Admiral Kirk to destroy an asteroid in their path, which had been dragged into the ruptured warp field along with them, with phasers. The refitted phasers now channeled power directly from the main engines at a point beyond the dilithium/magnatomic-initiator stage.

Because of this refitted function, the intermix malfunction, and the antimatter imbalance within the warp nacelles that had resulted, caused automatic cutoff of the phasers, a design change of which Kirk had not been aware. Decker ordered the use of photon torpedoes instead; as a backup, they had been designed to draw power from a separate system in case of a major phaser loss. The timely arrival of Commander Spock brought correction to the intermix problem. ( Star Trek: The Motion Picture ) Once the V'ger threat was averted, Captain Decker was listed as "missing in action" and the Enterprise remained under Admiral Kirk's command for an interim period. At some point, Kirk passed command on to Captain Spock. The new designs and components tested and proven aboard the Enterprise influenced a generation of starship design, from the Miranda-class to the Constellation-class , as well as other retro-fitted Constitutions. ( Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ) Final days Edit In 2285 , the Enterprise was in a low-tempo training cycle, based in the Sol system . Admiral Kirk boarded his old command to observe a cadet training cruise .

Meanwhile, Khan Noonien Singh had escaped from his exile on Ceti Alpha V and hijacked the USS Reliant , leading to his theft of the Genesis Device from the Regula I space station . The Enterprise, heavily damaged The Enterprise was tasked to investigate, and Spock deferred his command to Admiral Kirk. Subsequent engagements with Reliant left the ship badly damaged with cadet and crew deaths, including Captain Spock. ( Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ) "My God, Bones... what have I done?" - Admiral James T. Kirk Upon the Enterprise returning to Earth, Starfleet Commander in Chief Admiral Harry Morrow announced that the starship, at that point forty years old, would be decommissioned. When Morrow denied Kirk requesting permission to return to the Mutara sector , Kirk conspired with his senior officers and stole the Enterprise from Earth Spacedock , in order to recover Spock's body from the Genesis Planet – to bring it and Spock's katra , the latter possessed by Leonard McCoy , to Vulcan . As part of the plan, Kirk had Scott rig up an automation system to run the Enterprise so easily that "a chimpanzee and two trainees" could have handled the craft.

The Enterprise burning in Genesis' atmosphere At the Enterprise's destination, the ship was attacked by a Klingon Bird-of-Prey operated by Klingon Commander Kruge , an assault that left the Enterprise disabled; Scotty's automation system was not designed for combat and overloaded when the ship was attacked. After setting the auto-destruct sequence, Kirk and his crew abandoned the ship for the surface of the Genesis Planet. Demolition charges in place in the bridge and elsewhere throughout the ship's saucer section exploded, killing a Klingon boarding party . The secondary hull (with what was left of the saucer) fell from orbit and blazingly streaked across the planet's atmosphere . ( Star Trek III: The Search for Spock ) Film writer Harve Bennett justified the destruction of the Enterprise via an analogy to the USS Niagara . According to Bennett, " Oliver Hazard Perry of the U.S. Navy scuttled the Niagra [sic] at the battle of Lake Erie and won the battle as a result and took command." He added, "Perry happens to be one of James T. Kirk's great heroes.

So, the scuttling of the ship to achieve the greater good is a tactic ." ( Great Birds of the Galaxy: Gene Roddenberry and the Creators of Trek ) There is a difference in the appearance of the Enterprise between Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; in Star Trek III, the ship's external appearance appeared to have deteriorated around some areas damaged by Khan's attacks (and repaired in others), while other areas of the ship that had not been damaged by Khan's attack had battle damage, including the starboard secondary hull, both nacelles, and the top of the saucer. This extra damage was explained in non-canon Star Trek literature as having occurred in spars with Klingon warships between the second and third movies. The aggressive move to attack the Enterprise was explained by the secrecy of the Genesis Planet and the overall uneasiness it created. This could also explain the Klingon aggressiveness displayed throughout the third movie. [2] Crew The CG Enterprise from the "remastered" opening credits The Enterprise on a painting aboard the Enterprise-D The Enterprise and its interiors were designed primarily by Matt Jefferies .

A three-foot demonstration model was completed in November 1964 by the Howard Anderson Company to show to Gene Roddenberry . After getting his approval, an eleven-foot model was then constructed by Richard C. Datin, Jr. , Mel Keys , and Vern Sion at Volmer Jensen 's model shop, and was finished in December 1964 . The eleven-foot model was modified for TOS : " Where No Man Has Gone Before " and again for the regular series effect shots. Re-used footage of all three stages of the eleven-foot model's appearance are seen mixed together in TOS. In the final draft script of TOS : " The Naked Time ", the Enterprise was somewhat poetically described thus; "Sleek... efficient... the look of man in space... tooled... equipped...." For Star Trek: The Animated Series , the color of the Enterprise was limited. D.C. Fontana commented, "For the purposes of animation you can't do the light white, silver kinds of colors. So they made the Enterprise gray and it came off all right." ( Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 16 , p.

68) Some distinctive effects shots of the Enterprise from TOS were recreated in animation for Star Trek: The Animated Series. Depicting the ship performing any new, impressive maneuvers would have been too costly for TAS and would have taken the animators too long to show, despite frequent TAS Director Hal Sutherland later implying that a desire to portray the ship doing "barrel rolls and that kind of thing" was quite common. ( Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 16 , pp. 63 & 64) The refit of the Enterprise depicted in the films Star Trek: The Motion Picture , Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was designed by Andrew Probert , based on designs for the vessel made by Matt Jefferies for undeveloped television series Star Trek: Phase II . The design for the movie refit was the basis of a design patent issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The Enterprise was to have appeared in Star Trek: The First Adventure that revealed the design of the ship in TOS was actually a refit; the original design resembled Enterprise NX-01 , though that vessel was created years later.

The Enterprise was recreated as a new physical model for the DS9 Season 5 episode " Trials and Tribble-ations ". The ship's interior was represented with sets built on Paramount Stage 11 . (Information from Larry Nemecek ) The CG model of Constitution-class USS Defiant , created for " In a Mirror, Darkly ", was relabeled as the Enterprise for the final scene of " These Are the Voyages... ", the last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise . A new CG model, built from caliper measurements of the original eleven-foot physical model, was created for use in the remastered and recreated version of Star Trek: The Original Series (for more detailed treatises on the studio models used, see the appropriate articles: Constitution-class model (original) and Constitution-class model (refit) ). Visual effects artist Gabriel Koerner created a re-imagined version of the pre-refit Enterprise. The design is more contemporary, while keeping the design of the original ship. A video showing the ship from various angles can be seen on YouTube.

The model was also featured as the August image for the 2007 Ships of the Line calendar , as well as in the Ships of the Line coffee-table book, placed between TOS and TMP images, which included text from Michael Okuda suggesting it as one of the ideas on how to refit the ship. The Enterprise was pictured on three paintings during the Star Trek franchise: on a painting in the recreation deck of the refitted vessel in Star Trek: The Motion Picture , on a painting in the waiting area of the sickbay aboard the USS Enterprise-D in the Star Trek: The Next Generation fifth season episode " Ethics ", and on a painting on the wall of Kirk's kitchen in the Nexus in Star Trek Generations . Upon preparing to view the bridge of the Enterprise in the first draft script of TNG : " Relics ", Montgomery Scott specified, "Show her the way she was before Stardate 5928," referencing the stardate on which TOS series finale " Turnabout Intruder " takes place. Consequently, this line of dialogue would have established that the holographic simulation of the Enterprise's bridge in "Relics" was definitely contemporaneous with the exact setting of TOS.

Scott did not specify that in the final draft of the script, however. [3] The line is also not spoken on screen. The Enterprise was to have been referenced in the first draft script of VOY : " Flashback ", in connection with its near-destruction at Eminiar VII . However, all mention of the vessel was eliminated from the episode by the time the final draft of the script was written.

Question: How long was the Enterprise's mission supposed to last in Star Trek
Answer: Five years